ProductsServicesDownloadsSupportAbout UsBuy Now

Home » Support » Quick Help

Contact Manager Issues: ACT

  1. Configuration tabs specific to ACT!:
  2. General:
  3. Errors and synchronization issues:

 

Configuration tabs specific to ACT!

ACT! Data
This tab allows you to select which ACT! database you wish to sync with. As ACT! does not provide you with the path to your database, the best way to configure our software initially is to first open ACT!, make sure that you have your database up, then close ACT! and configure our software. When our software is first configured, it will then select that database, as it defaults to the database that was open in ACT! when ACT! was last closed. You may also browse to the database location. Our software can synchronize with local ACT! databases as well as databases on your network.


Fields
Palm handhelds only have one area for addresses for each contact. ACT! allows you to have multiple addresses for a contact. It is not possible to synchronize multiple addresses to the Palm. However, on the Fields tab in CompanionLink, you can choose which ACT! address you want on your handheld. This tab displays the address fields from the Palm handheld on the left. In middle, there are drop-down menus, displaying the corresponding fields from your contact manager. These are the fields that will be synched to your handheld. On the right are two buttons that allow you to select the Home or Business address. If you click one of these buttons, it will set the fields in the middle to the default for that address.


Groups
This tab allows you to choose a group or groups of contacts from ACT! to be synchronized instead of all the contact records. The options are:
  • Synchronize all ACT! contacts. All contacts in the ACT! database will be synched.
  • Synchronize only contacts in these groups. The groups from the ACT! database will be listed here. Putting a checkmark next to a group will cause the contacts from that group to sync. You may choose as many groups as you wish.
  • Add new contacts from [Sync Destination] to this Group. This option is only available if you select 'Synchronize only contacts in these groups'. You need to select a group from the dropdown menu. Any new contacts added to the sync destination (the handheld with CompanionLink, Outlook with DoubleLook or Lotus Notes with DoubleNotes) will be put into this group.

NOTE: If you choose to synchronize with multiple groups, we recommend selecting Group Name as your Category Field in our software. This will create categories based on the group names in the handheld/program you are synchronizing with.


Note Options
This tab allows you to choose which items from a contact's Notes/History tab in ACT! to synchronize and how many of them. You may select to transfer Notes, History and/or Attachments. These items will synchronize to the notes area of the contact they are for.

  • The maximum number of entries that may be transferred to the notes area of the contact is 25. This is the total of all checked areas. If you select the maximum number of notes, you may experience some slowness in your sync process. We recommend selecting 10 as the best compromise between data and speed.
  • If you choose Attachments, only the subject of the attachment will transfer.
  • In CompanionLink, you can choose to send your contacts only one direction, from ACT! to the handheld instead of both ways.

 

General

Activity types and common problems with finding data because of this
ACT! has three types of activities. These are meetings, calls and todos. By default, ACT! meetings and calls are synched to the calendar and todos are synched to the tasks/todos. If you cannot find your ACT! activity after the sync, make sure to look in the appropriate area for its type. CompanionLink Professional users can use the Datebook and Todo Map tabs to synchronize these activities to either area or to turn off the synchronization of one or all of the activity types.

Finding/verifying the ACT! database path
The ACT! Data tab lists which database you are synchronizing with. By default, this will be the database that was selected in ACT! the last time that you closed the ACT! program. You may change it at any time by clicking the Browse button and browsing to the database you wish to synchronize with.

You can verify the database selected in our software by doing the following:

  1. Open ACT!.
  2. Add a new contact, one that is not already in your database (for example, Bob Hope)
  3. Get the ACT! path from our program
    • For CompanionLink:
      1. Disconnect your handheld.
      2. Open CompanionLink Setup.
      3. Click on Settings. If you see the User Profile screen, click Next.
      4. Click Next and Configure.
      5. Click on the ACT! Data tab.
      6. Highlight the database listed here.
      7. Right-click this and choose Copy.
      8. Exit CompanionLink.
    • For DoubleLook/DoubleNotes:
      1. Right-click the DoubleLook/DoubleNotes icon in the Windows system tray.
      2. Choose DoubleLook/DoubleNotes Setup.
      3. Click Next and Configure.
      4. Click on the ACT! Data tab.
      5. Highlight the database listed here.
      6. Right-click this and choose Copy.
      7. Exit DoubleLook/DoubleNotes.
  4. Open ACT! if it is closed.
  5. In ACT!, go to the File menu and choose Open.
  6. Right-click the Filename block.
  7. Choose Paste.
  8. Click Open.
  9. Is the test contact that you added earlier in this database?
    • If it is, then you have the correct database selected in our software.
    • If it is NOT there, then the database selected in our software is wrong and will need to be changed to the correct database before your data will synchronize properly.

Note: There is no easy way to determine the path of any ACT! database you may have open in ACT!. ACT! does not list this information by default, only the database name. You must have the full path as well as the database name. If you need help locating your ACT! database, please contact our Technical Support department.


Database size
If you have more than 5,000 contacts in your ACT! database, we recommend that you set up groups for your contacts and use the Groups tab to limit the contacts that you sync with. If you have more than 10,000 contacts in your ACT! database, you will be automatically prompted to do this if you have not already done so.

While our software has no limit on the number of records you may synchronize for ACT!, you will notice the sync becoming slower depending on the number of contacts you have. Since DoubleLook and DoubleNotes are designed to always be running on your computer, we recommend that you limit the number of records being synchronized.


Groups and categorization
ACT! has the ability to put your contacts into groups so that you can deal with a portion of your database, instead of all of it. Our software is capable of recognizing your ACT! groups, selecting some or all of these to sync, and setting up categories based on these groups. You would do this on the Groups tab .

In order to set up categories by the group name, you would use the Category Field. Setting the Category Field to Group Name will create categories based on the names of the groups you are synching.

Categories by ACT! group name
Example 1. Categories by ACT! group name


Compatibility of ACT! Link, ACT! for Palm OS and CompanionLink
CompanionLink is compatible with ACT! for Palm OS. It is not compatible with ACT! Link. You would need to remove ACT! Link before using CompanionLink. Please see our ACT! Link removal page for instructions in how to do this.

DoubleLook and DoubleNotes are compatible with both ACT! Link and ACT! for Palm OS. This is because neither DoubleLook nor DoubleNotes is designed to synchronize with a handheld and therefore neither program is affected by ACT! Link or ACT! for Palm OS.

Errors and synchronization issues

Activities don't link
Activities scheduled for the MyRecord in ACT! will not appear as linked when they synchronize.

Slow syncs
There are a number of reasons specific to ACT! as to why you may experience a slow sync. These include:
  • Large amounts of notes in the MyRecord contact can cause slow syncs. Consider deleting any unneeded notes under Notes/History in this record.
  • The size of the database. Please see Database size for more information.
  • The number of notes/history/attachments selected to sync can cause slower syncs. With a large database, keeping this number at 5 or even turning this off, can speed up the synchronization process.
  • If you have not compressed and reindexed your ACT! database within the past week, we recommend doing this. You can find information on how to do this on our How to repair a database page.
  • Update our software to the latest version you are registered for. We are continually making improvements to our synchronization speed. If you are on an older build of our software, this may improve the synchronization performance, particularly with ACT!. Please see How to update to a newer version of CompanionLink/DoubleLook/DoubleNotes for instructions on how to do this.

Please see our Troubleshooting section for additional troubleshooting tips for this problem.


Data not transferring

Please see our Troubleshooting page for additional help in problems with data not transferring. The topics below are reasons specific to ACT! for data not to transfer. There are several other general things that you would want to check as well as these that could be preventing your data from transferring.

Please also see Finding/verifying the ACT! database path , as having the wrong database selected in our software can also cause your data not to transfer.


No data transfers from ACT!
There is a bug with our software that causes any data entered or changed in ACT! since January 9, 2004, to not synchronize. This bug has been fixed. However, you must be on a version of our software that has this bug fix in it. The correct versions of our software as listed below. Please see How to find the version of your program if you need help figuring out which version and build of our software you are using. If you need to upgrade your program to a higher version, please see How to update to a newer version of CompanionLink/DoubleLook/DoubleNotes .

  • CompanionLink version 1.3 : Must be on build 543.
  • CompanionLink version 2.0 : Must be on build 2546 or higher.
  • DoubleLook : Must be on version 2.0, build 2546 or higher.
  • DoubleNotes : Must be on version 2.0, build 2546 or higher.

If you were on an older build of the software and were experiencing this bug, you will need to either select the purge and reload setting in CompanionLink, or use the reread function of DoubleLook/DoubleNotes to get your existing ACT! data to transfer. New data entered into ACT! or changes made to ACT! should sync properly.


ACT! country codes not appearing/not transferring
In ACT!, you can choose to display the country code as part of the phone number. You can find this option by:

  1. Open ACT!.
  2. Go to the Edit menu and select Preferences.
  3. Click the General tab.
  4. Put a checkmark next to 'Always display country code in phone fields'
  5. Click OK.

Also, under the MyRecord in ACT!, you can set up your phone format for your database by clicking on the Phone field and clicking the box with the three dots.


Activities not synching
If you are using ACT! 2005 or higher, you will need to refresh ACT! before changes made by synchronization will appear. You can do this by clicking on the View menu and choosing Refresh, or by pressing Ctrl-F5.

Please see Activity types and common problems with finding data because of this .


Contact notes not synching
In order for notes on a contact to sync with ACT!, this contact must not be open in ACT! when the synchronization occurs. This is because, if the contact is open in ACT!, ACT! locks the contact open so that our software can't read or write data for that contact. Our software can only see changes/additions/deletions in contact notes if that contact has been closed in ACT!. (For instance, by switching to the Contact List view instead of the Contact view.) If you have the contact open when our software syncs, this note will not transfer. On subsequent syncs, even if the contact is closed, this change will not be made, because, on the prior sync, our software read the change in ACT! and recorded the fact of the change without being able to sync the data. Therefore, on subsequent syncs, it doesn't update this data because it sees the change as already having been synched.